IT and business services revenues set to exceed US$1 trillion for first time by 2018

Holly Morgan |
Nov. 8, 2016

Asia-Pacific forecast to have the highest overall growth rate.

Annual IT services and business services revenues are poised to pass the $US1 trillion mark for the first time in 2018, according to IDC.

Currently, worldwide services spending totals for 2016 are expected to stay within the $US900 billion range.

However, by 2020, annual spending is expected to near $US1.1 trillion.

The largest services markets will be business process outsourcing (BPO) and systems integration services, with each claiming more than $US100 million worth of spending this year.

According to IDC, these markets will also generate the largest revenue pools over the 2016-2020 forecast period.

However, business consulting services is forecast to outpace both markets in terms of growth, leading to a rise in engagement with a third party consultancy firm.

"As digital transformation involves significant changes to people and business processes as well as technology, most buyers will engage an outside services firm to help them along their transformation journey," explained IDC worldwide services group vice president, Rebecca Segal.

Segal added that as the demand for these services grows, a strong opportunity exists for those service firms who invest in "the right skills and assets" such as cloud, big data, social, and mobility, as well as "innovation accelerators" like next generation security and IoT.

According to IDC, cloud-related services spending is expected to reach more than $US98 billion by the end of 2016.

Whilst the US is expected to generate the largest percentage of services spending throughout the forecast period, the fastest growing regions will be Latin America, then the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

However, among the major global regions, Asia-Pacific (including Japan) is forecast to have the highest overall growth rate.